St. Petersburg Quartet bids farewell to Wolff

For as many working chamber groups as there are in the world today, there are few that you can say know how to rock and roll. The Kronos Quartet has an easy shoe-in to this list: they never give a live performance where they don�t play Purple Haze.

But when is the last time you heard Haydn, Ravel or Dvorak and it made you feel like you were witnessing something revolutionary?

Tuesday night in Finney Chapel, works by composers of the dead-white-male canon were performed in a provocative concert given by the St. Petersburg Quartet. The evening was in honor of Conservatory Dean Karen Wolff, who retired from the position, effective February 1, 1999.

The tribute was one to be remembered. Many people have commented on the power of music to express what words cannot. As an encore, the group played a piece by Tchaikovsky, and with as much reverence and grace as the occasion deserved. The performance paid homage to the �popular and gifted� Wolff, whose leadership and innovations in the Conservatory will not soon be forgotten.

The innovations of violinists Alla Aranovskaya, Ilya Teplyakov, violist Konstantin Kats, and cellist Leonid Shukaev, who comprise the St. Petersburg Quartet, were apparent in the first piece, Hadyn�s String Quartet in C major, Op. 76, No.3.

Contrasts in character in the first movement were exaggerated, and the sound produced by the cellist, in particular, surpassed what parameters are usually set for playing Haydn.

The second movement, marked Poco Adagio, cantabile was stunning. It could be argued that the quartet�s phrasing of the melody was too romantic, perhaps 50 years ahead of what Haydn could have conceived.

Regardless, the quartet displayed a kind of soul and simplicity that held mouths agape and put hairs on end.

Had old Joseph known that his second movement could be played that way, he may have had the good taste to end his quartet immediately after. The third movement was a rocky re-entry from high elevation, and the transition was distracting (at least for this observer). The fourth was a very lively finale that exhibited more of the quartet�s unique vitality.

Maurice Ravel�s Quartet in F major, the second piece on the program, is becoming an extremely favored work in the repertoire. It is as easy to imagine lighters being held through the Assez vif � tres rythme as it is to imagine this same movement plugged in. Amplification is only the next step for the St. Petersburg Quartet�s interpretation of this work. Where rhythmic precision was not always there in Tuesday night�s performance, the energy surged through to the last movement.

For the entire concert, body language, bravura and simple matters of volume often made the second violinist and violist invisible behind Alla Aranovskaya and Leonid Shukaev. It should not go unsaid that it is a rarity to walk away from a chamber music performance muttering: �damn, what a great second violinist!� In the moments that featured Ilya Teplyakov, as in the second movement of the Haydn and throughout the Ravel, it was a poet speaking above the din.

The first movement of Antonin Dvorak�s �American� Quartet, which was played last on the program, revealed some faults about the group. In matters of phrasing, the first violinist and cellist were often overly expressive, displaying too much body movement and not enough listening. Dvorak reaches sonorities phrase by phrase in the first movement. These chords were passed over and not cared for as well as the individual lines.

Leee Childers, photographer and manager of rock bands in the 60s and 70s once said that, �what rock and roll should always come down to is the un-allowed.� What made the music in Finney Chapel on Tuesday so exciting was this insistent questioning of the �allowed.�

The St. Petersburg Quartet will return for a second year in residency in 1999-2000. Many students and faculty in the Conservatory eagerly await their return.

Bring the Rock: St. Peterburgs quartet brings the house down in an emotional and touching tribute to Dean Wolff. (photo by Wes Steele)